Teresa Gambaro (Brisbane, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Education and Training. Will the minister inform the House of the benefits to the international education sector of the government's recently concluded free trade agreement with China? And, what are the risks to the realisation of these benefits?

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Brisbane for her question. I am very pleased to tell her and the House that international education has been one of the standout successes of this government in the last two years, on this the anniversary day of the election of the Abbott government. In the last two financial years, international education has gone from about $16 billion of value to the Australian economy to over $18 billion of value to the Australian economy, and year-on-year enrolments of international students have increased 14.6 per cent. So international education is one of those areas that is providing jobs and growth. In fact, it is the fourth largest export industry after iron ore, coal and natural gas, in front of gold.

The China Australia Free Trade Agreement will allow that to expand even further because under the ChAFTA, negotiated by the Minister for Trade, China will open up the market even more to non-university higher education providers. Overnight, 77 providers will be added to the Ministry of Education website as preferred providers within a year of the agreement being settled by Australia and China. So you would think that all Australians and all people in this House would be in favour of expanding the China Australia Free Trade Agreement in order to open up more markets for international education providers, more jobs and more growth. But Labor represents a risk to these jobs and this growth. Labor is the cat's claw of the CFMEU.

For short-term political gain, they are hopping into bed with the CFMEU to oppose the China Australia Free Trade Agreement and, with that opposition, are denying jobs and growth to the higher education market in Australia. They should be ashamed of themselves, because it is only due to the weakness of the Leader of the Opposition that this is being allowed to occur. Great Labor leaders stand up to unions like the CFMEU, but not this Labor leader. This Labor leader has decided instead to handover policy on trade, investment, jobs and growth to the CFMEU—one of the most discredited unions in Australia's history, ranking alongside the BLF from which many of its members came.

Labor should listen to real Labor luminaries: Bob Hawke, Bob Carr, Simon Crean, even Jay Weatherill, Daniel Andrews from Victoria and Luke Foley from New South Wales—real Labor leaders, who know what is good for jobs and growth. (Time expired)